A (11:27)
Doesn't that thrill you, the thought of that you're going to come out of here this week, this week, understanding how your flesh matters to God's purpose, that how dare us take our flesh and use it in a wrong way when God needs it for his purpose. How dare us take our flesh and use it, Take it to a wrong location, join it to wrong things. God needs our flesh to bless people in the earth, to manifest himself. Your flesh. Listen. Your flesh is not evil in the sense of it says in Romans 12, present your bodies. Present your bodies. Living, sacrifice, holy and acceptable. God accepts it. He's not accepting something evil. He gave you your flesh, but he wants flesh presented to him that has been sanctified and flesh that's set apart from things that don't glorify Him. Amen. That's called. And once we're born again, he sanctifies us. But we need to consecrate ourselves to what we've been sanctified to. We need to separate ourselves for what we were born again for. Amen. Because this will determine not only how much we can receive a miracle power, but how much we can minister miracle power. What we do with our flesh will determine the degree of power. Amen. Praise the Lord. So you know the phrase, not the phrase, the scripture where we want to hear well done, thou good and faithful servant, well done. That's what we want to hear, right? We don't want to do as Brother Copeland said, we don't want to hear. Well, Dad Hagen said that. He made. Dad Hagin made this statement. He said, every day I live with the awareness that one day I have to give an account for how I lived today. So we need to be interested in what God's interested in. We need to start stir ourselves up and not be apathetic and not really wholehearted. Let me ask you something. If you have a big need, don't you want God wholeheartedly interested in that? You don't want him half heartedly interested? Well, when God has a need of our flesh, he doesn't want us half heartedly interested. He wants us wholeheartedly interested in it. And amen. And when you're wholeheartedly interested, it shows up. We're not falling asleep while our pastor's preaching. We're not late and you know, looking at our watch, why we're wholeheartedly interested in what God is doing. Because God needs my flesh. He needs your flesh to manifest through Amen. Thank God we can pray. And thank God there is a flow and a benefit to prayer. But praying won't even do what God needs your flesh to do. He needs your flesh to lay hands on people. He needs your flesh to bless people and reach out. Amen. So Jesus, we want to hear him say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So much of the time we focus on this word faithful. And we should. It's a focus. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. But too many times we leave the first word unaddressed. Faithful is the second word. Well done, thou good. Well done, thou good. Well done, thou good. He's not talking necessarily there about behavior like you're behaving yourself. Now. We do want you to be good. Did you ever leave the house in the morning and your mom would say be good today? My mother didn't say be good. She always said be sweet. Be sweet. Every day I heard this of my life, be sweet. And so I heard that every day of my life, virtually be sweet. I probably need to pick that back up and, and even maybe help remind some. No, I'm teasing. But here Jesus said it's the phrase, well done, thou Good and faithful servant. If someone is good at their job, they can be promoted. If someone's not good at their job, they need to know, even think about promotion. Now, someone can be faithful to show up at their job. They're there every time, they should be. But they never developed themselves to become skillful at the position they're showing up for. Some people will show up, but they show up and do as little as they have to to get their paycheck. There are people, that's their mental approach. They don't really care about the job, they don't care about the man that hired them. They don't care about the company. They only care about getting my paycheck. So they show up and do as little as possible just to get the paycheck. Now that's not who Jesus employs. Jesus looks for someone who's good. What's that mean? They have been interested enough in what their assignment is to become skillful in that job that you are looking. How can I better myself? You don't just only take a step to be better when it's forced upon you, but you take steps to say, wait a minute, how can I help in this department? What can I do more? You're not looking to do as little as you can, you're looking to do as much as you can. Can, right? Well, that's the kind of mindset that it takes for us to be skillful with power. Because the power, miracle power, you understand, is greater than atomic power. You understand that it's greater than nuclear power. It's greater than radiation power. It's greater than all these other powers that men know about. Miracle power is greater. Now, do you think that God is going to let someone careless handle that? I mean, to any great degree? You might have somebody who's really half hearted, they may have a measure of results, but I'm talking about a body wholly filled and flooded with God himself. Right? What's that call for? It calls for us to be good. This word good is skillful, skillful. So we could say it this way. Well done, thou skillful and faithful servant. Because it doesn't really matter that you show up faithfully if you never get better at your job. Right? Yeah. Praise the Lord. So we don't want to just be faithful. We don't just want to focus on faithfulness. Yes, that's one of it. But preceding faithfulness was the word good. Preceding faithfulness is the need for skill. Amen. My piano teacher used to say this. She'd say, people will say, practice Makes perfect. She said, that's not true. She said, perfect practice makes perfect. You practice something wrong and you'll do it wrong. She said it matters how you practice. If you practice not caring that you're doing it wrong, you'll never be good at it. So it does matter to us that we get results when we pray, that we get results when we release our faith. We need to expect that we get results. Because if we're not getting results, we're not being skillful. And if we're not being skillful, we can't be promoted. Remember what he said. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. What's that mean? Enter into another level. Promotion. Those. You can't just say. He didn't just say, those who love the Lord, those who are skillful, good and faithful with those skills, they don't misuse those skills. They don't take those skills out and spend them in the world. Use them for Pharaoh, they use them for God. Amen. Praise the Lord. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Years ago, in the 90s, my husband was conducting a service. And Jesus appeared to him in that service. And when he did, fire shot out of his eyes at him. And he said this, you're not being skillful with the healing anointing. And then he disappeared. And Ed was there, heartbroken because you can imagine you, Jesus appears to you, and it's a rebuke of such displeasure. When fire shoots out of his eyes, it shows his displeasure, right? So he said, you're not being skillful. Couldn't we say that you're not being good at it? Why? Because if you're not good at something, you can't get promoted into more. Too many times people want more from God. But you have to give the level of skill and develop the level of skill of where you're at for there to be promotion. And what am I talking about? Skill with your faith, skill with your love walk. Skill with walking in peace. Skill with casting down imaginations, skill with taking every thought captive. Skill with your prayer life. Amen. These are. These are all the things that have been entranced to us as his people. This is how we show ourselves skillful. This is how we learn, right? And so Jesus said to my husband, you're not being skillful. And he said, with the healing anointing. Now, that doesn't mean. See, you can be skillful in one aspect and not skillful in another aspect. That didn't mean he was skillful, unfaithful, or Unskillful in all the other aspects his life. But with that one aspect, he said, you're not being skillful with the healing anointing. Now, Jesus was saying that to my husband because he had a tangible healing anointing upon his life. In his hand was a tangible healing anointing. So Jesus was saying, you're not being skillful with that which you've already been entrusted with. Now, by saying that, he's letting him know you're not being skillful with the healing anointing. And that displeased Jesus. But could I say this to you? It might not be a healing anointing. It might be any other thing he's entrusted to us. What has he entrusted to us? He expects us to be skillful with it. How about skillful in serving? When we're skillful in our local church, we should be serving in some capacity. And if we're skillful in serving, we're not just sitting back and waiting to be told everything. We're looking for something that needs doing. We don't have a mentality of the world which is do as little as you can to get as much as you can. Right. This is all about skill. So although he was specifically speaking to my husband about skill with the healing anointing, generally to all of us it would be skill about anything entrusted to us. How about skillful as parents? When we're not skillful as parents, it'll show up. Not today, not tomorrow, but sometime down the road it's going to show up, right? Yeah. Skill is so important. And it was lack of skill that fire shot out of Jesus eyes about now when he said to my husband, you're not being skillful with the healing anointing. What that means is people that should have been healed weren't. People that could have been healed weren't due to one thing. Not lack of power, lack of skill. Can I tell you this? None of us have a lack of power. Can I tell you? None of us have a lack of power. But all of us need to continue to grow in our skill. Why? Because Jesus said, you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. If you're filled with the Holy Ghost. Ghost, there is no lack of power in your life. You have power. It's about us becoming skillful. Now I'm going to say something else that's going to really kind of change your prayer life, hopefully, and that is this. You don't need to pray for God to send miracles. You don't need to pray For God to send power. He's our sent power. You don't need to pray for God to send a revival. No, no. Now it does say, in the time of the latter rain, ask ye of the Lord. Reign in the time of the latter rain. He's talking about an outpouring. But I guarantee you we already have power. We don't have to pray. God, would you perform miracles? Why do you think Jesus came to demonstrate that God wanted to do miracles? Why do you think the Holy Ghost came? So that power would be present and available, so that miracles could be worked. Amen. It's not about getting God to do something. It's about us being skillful so that he can do something. Let me say that again. It's about us becoming skillful so that he can do something through us. So what's he waiting on? Skill. Amen. Well, I thought he's waiting on faith. Yes. Skill with faith. Yeah, all of that. Skill with following the Holy Ghost, that when you're out and the Holy Ghost prompts you, go pray for that person. And you with skill you've had, skill in listening for him, skill in obeying him, and you go do it. Well, what if I'm wrong? Well, you might be wrong, but the Holy Ghost is not never wrong. So you know what? He can cover up for what you do wrong. Even if no one got healed, someone got blessed, that you noticed them. Even if you didn't know how to pray, even if you didn't know how to release your faith when you prayed for their healing, at least can you not imagine what it meant that some somebody recognize that they had a need? Amen. So where's the fail? It's not a lack of power, it's a lack of skill. So when God says it's time for miracles, he's letting us know, focus on becoming skillful with anything that's connected to miracle. Power flowing. That means we're going to have to address our faith, which means we're going to have to address our love life. Why? Because. Not love life. Boyfriend, girlfriend. Okay. Love walk. We're going to have to address it. Why? Because faith works by love. So all of these things that dovetail into one another have to be addressed because it's not just about miracles. It's about everything connected to miracles. Power flowing. Amen.